HOW TO RAISE A BOY: The Power of Connection

Current events find us talking more and more about the experiences of women and young girls, but what about the experiences of our sons and young men? How can we ensure that our sons are well-prepared and well-launched to manhood? How to Raise a Boy: The Power of Connection to Raise Good Men, by Dr. Michael Reichert, focuses on this question as a foundation to what we are missing when it comes to raising our sons.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Good morning and thanks for joining uson Get Connected. Current events find us
talking more and more about the experiencesof women and young girls. But what
about the experiences of our sons andyoung men? How can we ensure that

(00:24):
our sons are well prepared and welllaunched to manhood. In the book How
to Raise a Boy The Power ofConnection to Raise Good Men, Doctor Michael
Reichert focuses on what we know andwhat we're missing when it comes to raising
our sons. Doctor Michael Reichert,thanks for joining us on the show.
Glad to be with you, Nita. Doctor Reichert is the founding director of
the Center for the Study of Boysand Girls Lives at the University of Pennsylvania.

(00:46):
He's a clinical practitioner specializing in boysand men who has conducted extensive research
globally. And as you say inthe book, the conversation about what men
of virtue look like is getting louderand louder. What do men look like?
Well, you know, I thinkthat men of virtue look like good
human beings. I think that theessential premise of my book and of my

(01:11):
research and my work is that ifwe help boys hold onto their hearts and
minds, we can expect their virtueto flourish. It's interesting every year on
this show we have a conversation witha group called the Fresh Air Fund,
which is a charity program for ruralor suburban families to take a city kid
into their homes for the summer.The organization says every year the requests for

(01:36):
girls far out and number the requestsfor boys. Families want a playmate for
their daughter, or they want thedaughter they never had, and it always
feels to me like a prejudice againstboys they don't even know. Yeah,
you know, prejudice might be misleading. I actually think it's a fear,
and it matches other data we haveabout a new anxiety, a new uncertainty

(02:01):
that people who are caring for boysare feeling. I think we're just all
very, very vividly aware that lifeahead for a young man is fraught with
challenge and uncertainty. And that's somethingthat's This book was not written about the

(02:22):
Me Too movement, but that's somethingI assume you're saying has sort of been
spurred forward because of this. Assomeone who's who's worked with men and boys
and studied them, what are yourthoughts about all this female vitriol and how
is it being reflected back from families? Yeah, you know, I'm one
who believes that the women's movement hasbeen a great blessing to men and boys.

(02:45):
I think that calling males out forattitudes and behaviors that don't really reflect
who we are, but rather reflecta sort of a lower common denominator culture,
a hype for masculine fraternity type culture, I think that's actually freeing because

(03:06):
what it does is it lets usfocus on, well, who are boys
actually and if that's who boys reallyare, what are we doing in boyhood
in the nurture of our sons?That allows things to go off course,
Well, when it leads to leadsto not just me too type vallot violation,

(03:27):
but a whole wide range of negativeoutcomes educationally, health wise, violence,
and so forth. You do talkabout in the book how even when
people are pregnant, they'll say,well, I know it's a boy because
it's kicking me, for instance.Right, I wonder, Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, when do men themselves,boys themselves start to recognize there's a
way that they should be. Theyshould be tough, they should be manly,

(03:50):
all those things that we associate withsort of that undercurrent. Yeah,
that's one of the that's one ofthe things that's shocking to me as a
researcher. There's a wonderful psychologist atStanford University who did a study where she
embedded herself with a small group offour year old boys and followed them for

(04:10):
two years. Name was Judy Chew, and the title of her book is
When Boys Become Quote Boys, Andwhat she was able to track was that,
over the course of those two years, beginning at age four, she
watched those boys change. They becameless authentic, less articulate, less direct.

(04:30):
They went behind the mask and beganto play a part as they absorbed
the norms and the cultural cues reallyfrom everywhere in their world, not just
from the school and from their peergroup, from their teachers, but from
their families as well. We parentsunconsciously encourage boys to take on the trappings

(04:55):
of a convention of conventional masculinity,and essentially, what we're saying to the
boy is What matters more is thatyou pay the play the part, not
that you be yourself. And sowhat does that teach boys about social connections
and discussing all those issues are makingconnections with people? Yeah, well,
mena guess what it's like living behinda mask? You know, how lonely,

(05:19):
how frightening, actually, how dishearteningit feels to mails. There's a
bit of research called the man BoxStudy by an organization of in DC named
from Mundo, and they surveyed boyseight young men eighteen to twenty nine,
I believe, in three different countries. What they found was the young men

(05:41):
who adhere more to the traditional normsof masculinity have the highest rates of depression,
anxiety, and even suicidal ideation.The loss of pleasure in being alive
when you're constricted in a man box, in your requirement is to perform publicly

(06:04):
in ways that exemplify those traditional norms. That's a very disheartening place to be.
Doctor Michael Reicher is author of Howto Raise a Boy, The Power
of Connection to raise Good Men.It's a book that paves the way for
a constructive reimagining of how a boybecomes a good man. You're listening to
get connected on one oh six pointseven Light FM. I'm Nina del Rio

(06:26):
and as since you bring up thosefeelings of isolation and loneliness, one emotion
we do get from boys who feelthat is anger. Why is anger the
go to emotion? Yeah, let'scall it a default emotion, you know,
and it really, it really reflectsthe feeling rules of our culture.

(06:46):
What we know as researchers is thatboth boys and girls experience of emotions is
equal. We both feel things deeply. We are emotional creatures. It's hard
wired. You know, there's someprejudice or some myth out there that males

(07:06):
have different emotional equipment, but it'sactually not true. We begin light with
the same equipment, the same capacityto feel. What differs between males and
females is not the experience of emotions, but the expression of emotions, and
those follow feeling rules. And oneof the emotions that boys, men are

(07:30):
permitted to feel is anger. Soyou know, we're not allowed to feel
scared, we're not allowed to feelheartbroken, we're not allowed to feel lonely,
but we can feel pissed off aboutall those things, and so that
channel becomes a singular way that weexpress what we're feeling. When you are

(07:55):
trying to help a boy who isangry or aggressive, you talk about putting
compaci in that conversation. Generally,the guiding mantra that I try to follow
in my work with boys and menis every boy known and loved. Knowing
a boy requires that we actually listento him. We create conditions that let

(08:20):
him reveal what's really going on.Again, there's lots of idea myths that
boys don't have the capacity to expresswhat they're feeling. But I lead an
emotional literacy program for high school boysat a school outside of Philadelphia. I've
been doing it for twenty five years, and trust me, the young men,

(08:43):
the eleventh and twelfth grade boys inthat room have no trouble expressing what
they're feeling. All they need isan opportunity to do it where it's legitimate.
It's okay. If we build it, they will come. That's my
rule of thumbs. One other thingsyou say in the book is asking kids
to exercise self control before getting intotough subjects. You know, calm down

(09:05):
before you talk to me. Youcaution parents against that. Yeah, you
know, parents, we are weare what we psychologists call the holding environments
for our sons. That we can'trequire boys to fit themselves through a narrow

(09:26):
key hole, you know, apermissible key hole before really showing them showing
themselves to us. We have toaccept them as they are and trust that.
You know, it may be abit of a struggle for them to
express their feelings initially because they've beenso restricted, so constrained, it might

(09:50):
come out a bit rough. Andin researching schools and learning, because of
course teachers make such a big differencefor kids too, especially boys, when
they start sort of losing their theirinterest in school, perhaps you found it
might be more important who they're learningfrom than how they're learning any particular subject.
The connection is more important than thetopic. Yeah, the connection is

(10:13):
primary. That's really what our researchshowed. We did two different studies in
countries around the world. We hada total of perhaps twenty five hundred boys
from age twelve to eighteen and abouttwo thousand of their teachers. And what
we found from that research very clearlyidentified boys as relational learners. That if

(10:39):
you want to engage a boy ina learning partnership, if you want that
boy to be willing to be vulnerableto you as a coach or a teacher,
and go to the edge of whathe knows how to do and then
be willing to learn something new.In order for a boy to do that,
he has to have a connection tothe teacher or coach as as first

(11:01):
base. One of the things youspend a lot of time talking about in
the book is boys and friendships wherethey really start to matter for boys and
help them resist sort of that boycode. But when do they become negative
the boys club thing? When dobrotherhoods, for instance, make women pray?
And how do you sort of steeragainst that? Yeah, you know,

(11:22):
it's it's a it is a itis a danger because it's you know,
On the one hand, boys firstreal intimate friendships are going to be
with other boys, just in thenature of the gender segregation that still characterizes
most primary school playgrounds and classrooms.So boys practice skills of sharing and loyalty

(11:48):
and intimacy first with each other,and those friendships become life saving as boys
get older. One researcher who specializesin understanding male friendships, a woman at
NYU A Psychologists Nyu naiyobe Way,wrote a book titled Deep Secrets, and

(12:09):
it was a longitudinal study of boysfriendships, and she described young men who
said that they would die without theirfriends, they would go crazy. But
the problem is that those young menget the message from the broader culture that
they shouldn't remain close to other males, that they're the pressures of homophobia drive

(12:33):
males away from those deep connections witheach other, so that many adult men
actually have no friends at all,no one that they can really hang out
with and be themselves with. It'sa very lonely place to be. That's
one problem I think that characterizes malefriendships. The other is that male friendships

(12:58):
can devolve into a bro code,a brotherhood that promotes a brand of hyper
masculinity that includes elements of misogyny.And I think that what anchors a boy,
what prevents a boy from getting lostin those kinds of peer pressures,

(13:20):
is an accountability to someone who knowsand loves him. And parents can be
that, or a coach can bethat, or a teacher can be that,
or a mentor can be that.But someone who essentially holds a boy
to a higher moral standard helps thatboy resist that the pressures of that bro

(13:43):
code. Well, just in ourlast minute, I think you have said
that the show Queer Eye that's onNetflix now they actually do some of this.
Well. Yeah, I wrote apiece when I was writing for Yahoo
about that show because it is acultural sensation and it's a bit counterintuitive,

(14:03):
isn't it that a gang of gayguys can really offer a vital assistance to
more mainstream or or more restrict guysthat are more restrictive in terms of their
masculinity. And yet some of thestories on that show brought tears to people's

(14:26):
eyes because the caring and the attentionand the investment of health in those men's
lives was such a contradiction to theway that they had become isolated and alone,
believing that no one really cared aboutthem, much less new them.
So I think that it's really thesame secret sauce that we see in schools

(14:50):
where teachers perform a transformative role inhelping lift boys up to success or with
coaches or mentors. I think thatsecret sauce is really is to know and
love a boy, no, andlove a man. The book is How
to Raise a Boy The Power ofConnection to Raise Good Men by doctor Michael
Reichert. Thanks for joining us onGet Connected. Nice being with you,

(15:13):
Na. Thank you. This hasbeen Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven Lightfm.The views and opinions of our guests do
not necessarily reflect the views of thestation. If you missed any part of
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